Apto Commercial Real Estate Blog

When you think about prospecting, is cold calling the first thing that comes to mind?

It is for many brokers, and it’s easy to see why — if you want to find new prospects, you first need to call them, right?

It’s hard to argue with that, and while cold calling does play a role in every prospecting strategy, it shouldn't be your entire strategy. Instead, the best prospecting strategies are rethinking the use of cold calling, transforming it from an end in itself to just one part of a larger approach to securing new business.

From building your market presence to using technology to segment and systematize your efforts, use these three prospecting strategies to move beyond cold calling and make more meaningful relationships in your market.

Whether you’re a junior broker or an industry veteran, few people enjoy having their professional accomplishments put under the spotlight. And believe it or not, most managers dread the annual performance reviews just as much as employees.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

When done correctly, performance reviews are one of the best ways to coach brokers and bring teams together. But that only happens when managers embrace performance reviews as an opportunity to push the entire team forward.

So from laying the groundwork for successful reviews to rethinking the process as a two-way avenue of communication, here’s how managers can use performance reviews to strengthen teams and help brokers succeed.

Because of that, commercial real estate brokerage typically attracts outgoing people who have some natural sales ability. Competition can be fierce, and you can’t rely on charisma alone to close deals (though it doesn’t hurt!). There are many way you can hone those sales skills to stand out from the crowd, and one of the best ways is to attend sales conferences and learn from top sales leaders across various verticals. You’ll get out of the brokerage bubble and come away with tips that can be applied to brokerage and your prospecting process.

We’ve compiled a list of top sales conferences brokers should check out for 2019.

Commercial real estate brokerage is an inherently risky industry, and it can be difficult to get transparency into your business when you're working through complex deals that can take years to close. Sometimes it probably seems like deals can fall through at the drop of a hat.

It might seem difficult to predict when a deal will come through, but the truth is that you can and should track your pipeline. It is possible to better manage the risk involved and get some level of visibility into your cash flow. After all, if you ran a retail store or restaurant franchise and didn’t have any reporting on the business, how long do you think you'd last?

This year promises to be a year of opportunity, and to ensure you win every deal that comes your way, you’re using…the same old spreadsheets.

We feel your pain.

Despite soaring industry technology adoption and the growing understanding that technology, and especially a strong CRM, are essential ingredients to success in today's market, too many brokers are still relying on outdated spreadsheets. We wish every broker could compete on a level playing field, but until that happens we’re here to help brokers of all technology levels.

That’s why we put together a list of 20 shortcuts for brokers still using Microsoft Excel. While these shortcuts won’t transform the technology, they will help you level the playing field. So from navigating efficiently to effectively formatting your cells, use these shortcuts to squeeze the most out of Excel.

After the last commission checks are cut and other compensation added up, a healthy majority of commercial real estate brokers say they will have made more money in 2018 than in 2017, according to the latest Apto National Broker Buzz Poll, which was conducted earlier this month by commercial real estate software company Apto.

2018 turned out to be a very good year, say most brokers who responded to the Apto poll. Commercial real estate brokers expect more of the same in 2019. Here are the specific survey results:

Is this the year you finally revamp your brokerage website? Frankly, we’ve seen a lot of brokerage websites over the years, and many haven’t been updated in a decade or more! Those could probably use a little love.

Fortunately, these days, there are plenty of ready-made, easy-to-use templates to create a professional website. Some are even free! A website overhaul doesn’t have to be expensive or even that cumbersome. While you should be thoughtful about your approach and take time to do it right, you can switch over to some new site templates without much hassle.

Here's what you need to know to get started—and a few website templates to inspire you.

Shifting tenant expectations, a growing reliance on technology, reimagined office spaces and the retail showdown of the century—those are just a few of the trends that shaped the world of commercial real estate last year.

And while many of those trends will continue throughout this year, experts are painting a complicated picture for 2019. Much of that complexity comes from the current mix of technological evolution, regulatory changes, and the fact that we’re in the middle of one of the longest economic expansions in U.S. history.

From the opportunity zone craze to accelerating industry tech adoption, expect these six trends to shape the course of CRE this year.

Do you have prospecting goals? Maybe you set aside an hour each morning to call however many people you can, or perhaps you set a goal of 500 calls a week.

The next question is tougher: Do you ever meet those goals? Let’s face it—you’re busy, and prospecting isn’t fun. Not only is it not fun, our brains aren’t really wired to feel motivation for a task where the payoff is so far in the future! Any given call might turn into a deal, but even if all goes perfectly, it could be months until you see a paycheck. More often it’s years.

Now here’s some good news: there’s a different, easier way to approach prospecting. Most brokers probably default to increasing call volume when they want to fill their pipeline. But if you break the numbers down a little differently, you can create a strategy that’s a lot less overwhelming and a lot more effective.